5.00 a.m. – 5 miles, including the Fat mile loop, plus an extra 1.4-1.5 miles. 42 mins – call it 8.20 something pace.
After yesterday’s catastrophe, I wasn’t looking forward to this morning’s run. I had penciled in a 5 miler but wasn’t averse to calling it a day at 3.6, if struggling. Although I felt tired, it wasn’t like going ten rounds with Tyson in his prime – more like having the occasional clout off him - so I pushed on and ‘knocked-out’ a cheeky little 5.
I invested in one of those bizarre, green, Adidas Climaproof, all weather jackets and yesterday afternoon, when I was about to try it out, my eldest daughter (9) went skits.
‘You look mad,’ she said. ‘What if my friends recognise you? You’re so embarrassing; you think you’re a teenager, well you’re not – you’re a silly old man. Mum, will you ever have a word with him?’
‘Sure, couldn’t you just, you know. You do look a bit odd,’ the wife said. ‘And don’t be out too long, I’m kinda hungry.’
‘He looks like a monster covered in snotters,’ my daughter said.
Off I went, without my green jacket. But I wore it this morning, when they were all sleeping. Like a monster covered in snotters, I thought as I chugged up the road. That’s exactly what the creature looked like as ‘it’ waded out of the pool, the other day in Leprechaun land.
‘Here’s Finn,’ Sean the running guru had said. ‘Be sure and to take a care now. He may well be wrecked.’
‘Wrecked?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at the barrel of poteen he’s carrying,’ Sean said. ‘If that’s half empty, he’ll be full of the wind and be right for some blackguarding. If, however, it’s nearly empty, then we’re done for.’
‘Top of it to you, Finn,’ Sean said. ‘Will you not tip your hat to your new running partner, this young rapscallion next to me.’
He gave a grimace that would've set Tyson on his toes.
Running partner, I thought. What’s this all about?
Stood at the water’s edge, with all sorts of vegetation dangling from him, Finn let out a belch that made the very earth we sat on quake.
‘Mind and to take a care,’ Sean whispered. ‘Finn can go a bit in a tear-up. I’ve seen him wipe out an army in seconds. He has the temper of a red haired woman in the mornings.’
Finn plonked himself down on the bank and took a swig from his barrel. For sure, he was the biggest man I’d ever seen. A genuine giant of man. He wiped his mouth and put his barrel down and then turned and stared at me. I think he was trying to suss me out.’
‘Hello.’ I said in a high pitch voice that sounded like a frightened prepubescent boy. I felt the shame burning on my cheeks. ‘How’s things,’ I said in my deepest gravelly voice, trying to rectify the situation.
Finn gave a grin, showing his crumbled black teeth, and pulled a headband out of his trouser pocket and to my amazement it was as pink as the socks the man is wearing in Jake K’s picture of the Long Beach Half. He put the headband on and fixed his hair over the band and shook his locks.
‘When do we get started,’ he said with a eunuch’s pitch…
RHR 56
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